Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 6

I must therefore now sketch a different picture of literary solitude than some sanguine and youthful minds conceive.

Even the sublimest of men, Milton, who is not apt to vent complaints, appears to have felt this irksome period of life. In the preface to Smectymnuus, he says, "It is but justice, not to defraud of due esteem the _wearisome labours_ and _studious watchings,_ wherein I have spent and _tired_ out almost a whole youth."

Solitude in a later period of life, or rather the neglect which awaits the solitary man, is felt with acuter sensibility. Cowley, that enthusiast for rural seclusion, in his retirement calls himself "The melancholy Cowley." Mason has truly transferred the same epithet to Gray. Bead in his letters the history of solitude. We lament the loss of Cowley's correspondence, through the mistaken notion of Sprat; he a.s.suredly had painted the sorrows of his heart. But Shenstone has filled his pages with the cries of an amiable being whose soul bleeds in the dead oblivion of solitude. Listen to his melancholy expressions:--"Now I am come from a visit, every little uneasiness is sufficient to introduce my whole train of melancholy considerations, and to make me utterly dissatisfied with the life I now lead, and the life I foresee I shall lead. I am angry, and envious, and dejected, and frantic, and disregard all present things, as becomes a madman to do. I am infinitely pleased (though it is a gloomy joy) with the application of Dr. Swift's complaint, that he is forced to die in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole." Let the lover of solitude muse on its picture throughout the year, in the following stanza by the same poet:--

Tedious again to curse the drizzling day, Again to trace the wintry tracks of snow!

Or, soothed by vernal airs, again survey The self-same hawthorns bud, and cowslips blow!

Swift's letters paint in terrifying colours a picture of solitude, and at length his despair closed with idiotism. The amiable Gresset could not sport with the brilliant wings of his b.u.t.terfly muse, without dropping some querulous expression on the solitude of genius. In his "Epistle to his Muse," he exquisitely paints the situation of men of genius:

----Je les vois, victimes du genie, Au foible prix d'un eclat pa.s.sager, Vivre isoles, sans jouir de la vie!

And afterwards he adds,

Vingt ans d'ennuis, pour quelques jours de gloire!

I conclude with one more anecdote on solitude, which may amuse. When Menage, attacked by some, and abandoned by others, was seized by a fit of the spleen, he retreated into the country, and gave up his famous Mercuriales; those Wednesdays when the literati a.s.sembled at his house, to praise up or cry down one another, as is usual with the literary populace. Menage expected to find that tranquillity in the country which he had frequently described in his verses; but as he was only a poetical plagiarist, it is not strange that our pastoral writer was greatly disappointed. Some country rogues having killed his pigeons, they gave him more vexation than his critics. He hastened his return to Paris. "It is better," he observed, "since we are born to suffer, to feel only reasonable sorrows."

LITERARY FRIENDs.h.i.+PS.

The memorable friends.h.i.+p of Beaumont and Fletcher so closely united their labours, that we cannot discover the productions of either; and biographers cannot, without difficulty, compose the memoirs of the one, without running into the life of the other. They pourtrayed the same characters, while they mingled sentiment with sentiment; and their days were as closely interwoven as their verses. Metastasio and Farinelli were born about the same time, and early acquainted. They called one another _Gemello_, or The Twin, both the delight of Europe, both lived to an advanced age, and died nearly at the same time. Their fortune bore, too, a resemblance; for they were both pensioned, but lived and died separated in the distant courts of Vienna and Madrid. Montaigne and Charron were rivals, but always friends; such was Montaigne's affection for Charron, that he permitted him by his will to bear the full arms of his family; and Charron evinced his grat.i.tude to the manes of his departed friend, by leaving his fortune to the sister of Montaigne, who had married. Forty years of friends.h.i.+p, uninterrupted by rivalry or envy, crowned the lives of Poggius and Leonard Aretin, two of the ill.u.s.trious revivers of letters. A singular custom formerly prevailed among our own writers, which was an affectionate tribute to our literary veterans by young writers. The former adopted the latter by the t.i.tle of sons. Ben Jonson had twelve of these poetical sons. Walton the angler adopted Cotton, the translator of Montaigne.

Among the most fascinating effusions of genius are those little pieces which it consecrates to the cause of friends.h.i.+p. In that poem of Cowley, composed on the death of his friend Harvey, the following stanza presents a pleasing picture of the employments of two young students:--

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, How oft unwearied have we spent the nights!

Till the Ledaean stars, so famed for love, Wondered at us from above.

We spent them not in toys, in l.u.s.t, or wine, But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poetry, Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

Milton has not only given the exquisite Lycidas to the memory of a young friend, but in his _Epitaphium Damonis_, to that of Deodatus, has poured forth some interesting sentiments. It has been versified by Langhorne. Now, says the poet,

To whom shall I my hopes and fears impart, Or trust the cares and follies of my heart?

The elegy of Tickell, maliciously called by Steele "prose in rhyme," is alike inspired by affection and fancy; it has a melodious languor, and a melancholy grace. The sonnet of Gray to the memory of West is a beautiful effusion, and a model for English sonnets. Helvetius was the protector of men of genius, whom he a.s.sisted not only with his criticism, but his fortune. At his death, Saurin read in the French Academy an epistle to the manes of his friend. Saurin, wrestling with obscurity and poverty, had been drawn into literary existence by the supporting hand of Helvetius. Our poet thus addresses him in the warm tones of grat.i.tude:

C'est toi qui me cherchant au sein de l'infortune, Relevas mon sort abattu, Et sus me rendre chere une vie importune.

Qu'importent ces pleurs-- O douleur impuissante! o regrets superflus!

Je vis, helas! Je vis, et mon ami n'est plus!

IMITATED.

In misery's haunts, thy friend thy bounties seize, And give an urgent life some days of ease; Ah! ye vain griefs, superfluous tears I chide!

I live, alas! I live--and thou hast died!

The literary friends.h.i.+p of a father with his son is one of the rarest alliances in the republic of letters. It was gratifying to the feelings of young Gibbon, in the fervour of literary ambition, to dedicate his first-fruits to his father. The too lively son of Crebillon, though his was a very different genius to the grandeur of his father's, yet dedicated his works to him, and for a moment put aside his wit and raillery for the pathetic expressions of filial veneration. We have had a remarkable instance in the two Richardsons; and the father, in his original manner, has in the most glowing language expressed his affectionate sentiments. He says, "My time of learning was employed in business; but after all, I have the Greek and Latin tongues, because a part of me possesses them, to whom I can recur at pleasure, just as I have a hand when I would write or paint, feet to walk, and eyes to see.

My son is my learning, as I am that to him which he has not.--We make one man, and such a compound man may probably produce what no single man can." And further, "I always think it my peculiar happiness to be as it were enlarged, expanded, made another man, by the acquisition of my son; and he thinks in the same manner concerning my union with him." This is as curious as it is uncommon; however the cynic may call it egotism!

Some for their friend have died penetrated with inconsolable grief; some have sacrificed their character to preserve his own; some have shared their limited fortune; and some have remained attached to their friend in the cold season of adversity.

Jurieu denounced Bayle as an impious writer, and drew his conclusions from the "Avis aux Refugies." This work is written against the Calvinists, and therefore becomes impious in Holland. Bayle might have exculpated himself with facility, by declaring the work was composed by La Roque; but he preferred to be persecuted rather than to ruin his friend; he therefore was silent, and was condemned. When the minister Fouquet was abandoned by all, it was the men of letters he had patronised who never forsook his prison; and many have dedicated their works to great men in their adversity, whom they scorned to notice at the time when they were noticed by all. The learned Goguet bequeathed his MSS. and library to his friend Fugere, with whom he had united his affections and his studies. His work on the "Origin of the Arts and Sciences" had been much indebted to his aid. Fugere, who knew his friend to be past recovery, preserved a mute despair, during the slow and painful disease; and on the death of Goguet, the victim of sensibility perished amidst the ma.n.u.scripts which his friend had in vain bequeathed to prepare for publication. The Abbe de Saint Pierre gave an interesting proof of literary friends.h.i.+p. When he was at college he formed a union with Varignon, the geometrician. They were of congenial dispositions.

When he went to Paris he invited Varignon to accompany him; but Varignon had nothing, and the Abbe was far from rich. A certain income was necessary for the tranquil pursuits of geometry. Our Abbe had an income of 1800 livres; from this he deducted 300, which he gave to the geometrician, accompanied by a delicacy which few but a man of genius could conceive. "I do not give it to you," he said, "as a salary, but an annuity, that you may be independent, and quit me when you dislike me."

Something nearly similar embellishes our own literary history. When Akenside was in great danger of experiencing famine as well as fame, Mr.

Dyson allowed him three hundred pounds a year. Of this gentleman, perhaps, nothing is known; yet whatever his life may be, it merits the tribute of the biographer. To close with these honourable testimonies of literary friends.h.i.+p, we must not omit that of Churchill and Lloyd. It is known that when Lloyd heard of the death of our poet, he acted the part which Fugere did to Goguet. The page is crowded, but my facts are by no means exhausted.

The most ill.u.s.trious of the ancients prefixed the name of some friend to the head of their works.--We too often place that of some patron. They honourably inserted it in their works. When a man of genius, however, shows that he is not less mindful of his social affection than his fame, he is the more loved by his reader. Plato communicated a ray of his glory to his brothers; for in his Republic he ascribes some parts to Adimanthus and Glauchon; and Antiphon the youngest is made to deliver his sentiments in the Parmenides, To perpetuate the fondness of friends.h.i.+p, several authors have ent.i.tled their works by the name of some cherished a.s.sociate. Cicero to his Treatise on Orators gave the t.i.tle of Brutus; to that of Friends.h.i.+p, Lelius; and to that of Old Age, Cato. They have been imitated by the moderns. The poetical Ta.s.so to his dialogue on Friends.h.i.+p gave the name of Manso, who was afterwards his affectionate biographer. Sepulvueda ent.i.tles his Treatise on Glory by the name of his friend Gonsalves. Lociel to his Dialogues on the Lawyers of Paris prefixes the name of the learned Pasquier. Thus Plato distinguishes his Dialogues by the names of certain persons; the one on Lying is ent.i.tled Hippius; on Rhetoric, Gorgias; and on Beauty, Phaedrus.

Luther has perhaps carried this feeling to an extravagant point. He was so delighted by his favourite "Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians," that he distinguished it by a t.i.tle of doting fondness; he named it after his wife, and called it "His Catherine."

ANECDOTES OF ABSTRACTION OF MIND.

Some have exercised this power of abstraction to a degree that appears marvellous to volatile spirits, and puny thinkers.

To this patient habit, Newton is indebted for many of his great discoveries; an apple falls upon him in his orchard,--and the system of attraction succeeds in his mind! he observes boys blowing soap bubbles, and the properties of light display themselves! Of Socrates, it is said, that he would frequently remain an entire day and night in the same att.i.tude, absorbed in meditation; and why should we doubt this, when we know that La Fontaine and Thomson, Descartes and Newton, experienced the same abstraction? Mercator, the celebrated geographer, found such delight in the ceaseless progression of his studies, that he would never willingly quit his maps to take the necessary refreshments of life. In Cicero's Treatise on Old Age, Cato applauds Gallus, who, when he sat down to write in the morning, was surprised by the evening; and when he took up his pen in the evening was surprised by the appearance of the morning. Buffon once described these delicious moments with his accustomed eloquence:--"Invention depends on patience; contemplate your subject long; it will gradually unfold, till a sort of electric spark convulses for a moment the brain, and spreads down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then come the luxuries of genius! the true hours for production and composition; hours so delightful, that I have spent twelve and fourteen successively at my writing-desk, and still been in a state of pleasure." The anecdote related of Marini, the Italian poet, may be true. Once absorbed in revising his Adonis, he suffered his leg to be burnt for some time, without any sensation.

Abstraction of this sublime kind is the first step to that n.o.ble enthusiasm which accompanies Genius; it produces those raptures and that intense delight, which some curious facts will explain to us.

Poggius relates of Dante, that he indulged his meditations more strongly than any man he knew! whenever he read, he was only alive to what was pa.s.sing in his mind; to all human concerns, he was as if they had not been! Dante went one day to a great public procession; he entered the shop of a bookseller to be a spectator of the pa.s.sing show. He found a book which greatly interested him; he devoured it in silence, and plunged into an abyss of thought. On his return he declared that he had neither seen, nor heard, the slightest occurrence of the public exhibition which had pa.s.sed before him. This enthusiasm renders everything surrounding us as distant as if an immense interval separated us from the scene. A modern astronomer, one summer night, withdrew to his chamber; the brightness of the heaven showed a phenomenon. He pa.s.sed the whole night in observing it, and when they came to him early in the morning, and found him in the same att.i.tude, he said, like one who had been recollecting his thoughts for a few moments, "It must be thus; but I'll go to bed before 'tis late!" He had gazed the entire night in meditation, and did not know it.

This intense abstraction operates visibly; this perturbation of the faculties, as might be supposed, affects persons of genius physically.

What a forcible description the late Madame Roland, who certainly was a woman of the first genius, gives of herself on her first reading of Telemachus and Ta.s.so. "My respiration rose; I felt a rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice changing, had betrayed my agitation; I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred; however, during this perfect transformation, I did not yet think that I myself was any thing, for any one. The whole had no connexion with myself, I sought for nothing around me; I was them, I saw only the objects which existed for them; it was a dream, without being awakened."--Metastasio describes a similar situation. "When I apply with a little attention, the nerves of my sensorium are put into a violent tumult. I grow as red in the face as a drunkard, and am obliged to quit my work." When Malebranche first took up Descartes on Man, the germ and origin of his philosophy, he was obliged frequently to interrupt his reading by a violent palpitation of the heart. When the first idea of the Essay on the Arts and Sciences rushed on the mind of Rousseau, it occasioned such a feverish agitation that it approached to a delirium.

This delicious inebriation of the imagination occasioned the ancients, who sometimes perceived the effects, to believe it was not short of divine inspiration. Fielding says, "I do not doubt but that the most pathetic and affecting scenes have been writ with tears." He perhaps would have been pleased to have confirmed his observation by the following circ.u.mstances. The tremors of Dryden, after having written an Ode, a circ.u.mstance tradition has accidentally handed down, were not unusual with him; in the preface to his Tales he tells us, that in translating Homer he found greater pleasure than in Virgil; but it was not a pleasure without pain; the _continual agitation of the spirits_ must needs be a weakener to any const.i.tution, especially in age, and many pauses are required for refreshment betwixt the heats. In writing the ninth scene of the second act of the Olimpiade, Metastasio found himself in tears; an effect which afterwards, says Dr. Burney, proved very contagious. It was on this occasion that that tender poet commemorated the circ.u.mstance in the following interesting sonnet:--

SONNET FROM METASTASIO.

"_Scrivendo l'Autore in Vienna l'anno 1733 la sua Olimpiade si senti commosa fino alle lagrime nell' esprimere la divisione di due teneri amici: e meravigliandosi che un falso, e da lui inventato disastro, potesse cagionargli una si vera pa.s.sione, si fece a riflettere quanto poco ragionevole e solido fondamento possano aver le altre che soglion frequentamente agitarci, nel corso di nostra vita_.

Sogni e favole io fingo, e pure in carte Mentre favole, e sogni, orno e disegno, In lor, (folle ch' io son!) prendo tal parte Che del mal che inventai piango, e mi sdegno.

Ma forse allor che non m' inganna l'arte, Piu saggio io sono e l'agitato ingegno Forse allo piu tranquillo? O forse parte Da piu salda cagion l'amor, lo sdegno?

Ah che non sol quelle, ch'io canto, o scrivo Favole son; ma quanto temo, o spero, Tutt' e manzogna, e delirando io vivo!

Sogno della mia vita e il corso intero.

Deh tu, Signor, quando a destarmi arrivo Fa, ch'io trovi riposo in sen del VERO.

_In 1733, the Author, composing his Olimpiade, felt himself suddenly moved, even to tears, in expressing the separation of two tender lovers. Surprised that a fict.i.tious grief, invented too by himself, could raise so true a pa.s.sion, he reflected how little reasonable and solid a foundation the others had, which, so frequently agitated us in this state of our existence._

SONNET--IMITATED.

Fables and dreams I feign; yet though but verse The dreams and fables that adorn this scroll, Fond fool! I rave, and grieve as I rehea.r.s.e; While GENUINE TEARS for FANCIED SORROWS roll.

Perhaps the dear delusion of my heart Is wisdom; and the agitated mind, As still responding to each plaintive part, With love and rage, a tranquil hour can find.